Hearing and Sound Reproduction

adias

adias

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An interesting talk on hearing and its relation to sound reproduction:


Video author's error corrections:
1) There's a typo around 14:27. When it says "Appox." on screen, it should be "Approx." It's not just some fancy scientific term ;)
2) At 17:10 the 6dB quieter sound is the one perceived further away than the 6dB louder sound
 
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This is a very interesting explanation that clearly points out that human hearing and perception of sound is far more complicated and far more sensitive that most people think. He points out that some of the subtleties are much too small for the typical bench measurements to detect. He even points, out, even with a little humor, that the capacitance of a cable can effect its performance - with real data. And, of course, not every brain is wired in exactly the same way. The people who scoff at the subtle differences DACs and cables can make should read this article. Human hearing is a wonderous capability.
 
Sounded all sound and solid to me ... up to the point where he introduced some secrete non-measurable "capacitance" ...
 
harkpabst said:
Sounded all sound and solid to me ... up to the point where he introduced some secrete non-measurable "capacitance" ...
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Capacitance is a well known electrical characteristic and different cables have different capacitances. Circuits with capacitance in them are known to delay the timing of the signal. In cable design there is, for example, a trade off between flexibility and shielding and that design decision produces different levels of capacitance in the cable. The capacitance in cables comes from the construction of the cables, including the sheathing of the cable and the dielectric used and it is definitely measurable.

Beldon and other cable manufactures (general cable, not audio cables) routinely report the capacitance of the cable. For example Beldon1505F has a capacitance of 17 pF/ft whereas Beldon 1694A is 16.2 pF/ft. By comparison, Blue Jeans Cable (an audio cable company) uses it LC-2 with a capacitance of less than 11 pF/ft.

The video simply reported research that discussed the time delay of 2 cables with difference capacitances and he simply states the difference in timing due to different capacitances can be important in the time scale that he is discussing.

For a simple discussion of RC time constants and the resulting time delay, see here

en.wikipedia.org

RC time constant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Well then what does this comment mean? Capacitance is certainly a factor in cable design and is certainly measurable.

FYI - Ph. D. physicist here.
 
Capacitance is in "quotes" which seemed to me to indicate that it is not a real thing. Hence my comments.

Anyway, have you watched the video? If not, the cable part starts at about 23 minutes in. All the analyst says is that capacitance causes time delay in circuits and it is on the time scale he is discussing. What is wrong with that?
 
dtc said:
Capacitance is in "quotes" which seemed to me to indicate that it is not a real thing. Hence my comments.
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Again, I read it the other way - if it were capacitance and not something else then it wouldn’t be secret and would be measurable, hence his quotes around it. Anyway, I’ll leave it to @harkpabst to explain what he meant ;) Cheers :)
 
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Oh, phase shift in cables. It’s quite possible to make a mess of that too in hifi. Ask yourself: Do I know the phase behavior of my complete hifi system?
 
onlyoneme said:
I don't think so. If the recording equipment was able to detect it, it will be detectable by the measurement equipment as well.
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Note I said "typical bench measurements".

Of course it is measureable with the right equipment. But very few of the analysts doing these measurements has equipment to measure in that time domain. That is his point. Honestly, nobody reports time domain data at the level he is discussing.

Have you watched the video?
 
Valentino said:
No, and I am not going to. If it’s science it shouldn’t have commercial breaks.
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I would point out that a very large amount of science is done by commercial entities.

By the way, I watched it with Duck Duck Go's Player and it skips the ads.

If you refuse to watch it, then, with all due respect, please refrain from commenting on something you have not watched.
 
Are you saying there is something new in that video? Something new that affects electrical signals in the audio band?
 
The point I'm referring to is that right in the middle of the video he makes up a list of effects that can be caused by capacitance (and yes, EE here knows what capacitance is in general) and claims at the same time that it cannot be measured, just perceived. Sorry, that's where I stopped watching.

And don't get me wrong, I not only know the effects caused by capacitance. I also know that the correlation between standard measurements and perceived sound are not always that easy to find. I hope we all agree that a technically perfect device would "sound" completely transparent. In reality that perfect device cannot exist, so we always have to try and find thresholds of perceivability and it's certainly not sufficient just to look at isolated value, which - by chance - we can measure conveniently (or at all).

But there's really no magic into measuring capacitance and the effects it can have (which differ vastly depending on where they appear). I don't like the introduction of the term as something that in some dubious way always adds delay (irrespective of the actual value). That's close to those people who can hear the house sound of different elkos used anywhere in the power supply.
 
harkpabst said:
The point I'm referring to is that right in the middle of the video he makes up a list of effects that can be caused by capacitance (and yes, EE here knows what capacitance is in general) and claims at the same time that it cannot be measured, just perceived. Sorry, that's where I stopped watching.

And don't get me wrong, I not only know the effects caused by capacitance. I also know that the correlation between standard measurements and perceived sound are not always that easy to find. I hope we all agree that a technically perfect device would "sound" completely transparent. In reality that perfect device cannot exist, so we always have to try and find thresholds of perceivability and it's certainly not sufficient just to look at isolated value, which - by chance - we can measure conveniently (or at all).

But there's really no magic into measuring capacitance and the effects it can have (which differ vastly depending on where they appear). I don't like the introduction of the term as something that in some dubious way always adds delay (irrespective of the actual value). That's close to those people who can hear the house sound of different elkos used anywhere in the power supply.
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His point, which he introduces with good humor, is that capacitance in cables can cause time delays on the order of which he is discussing. Tthese timing delay does not effect the frequency you hear (20 to 20KHz) but it may effect your perception based on the timing issues he has already discussed. There is always the issue as to whether an individual can hear any effects from that delay and he does not claim that.

I took his comments as somewhat of an aside rather than a definitive statement about audio cables.
 
Valentino said:
Are you saying there is something new in that video? Something new that affects electrical signals in the audio band?
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Clearly you have not watched the video. It is not about the 20-20K Hz audio band. It is about how your brain works. Watch it, you will might learn something.
 
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